This investigation of the overwhelming appeal of quantification in the modern world discusses the development of cultural meanings of objectivity over two centuries. How are we to account for the current prestige and power of quantitative methods? The usual answer is that quantification is seen as desirable in social and economic investigation as a result of its successes in the study of nature. Theodore Porter is not content with this. Why should the kind of success achieved in the study of stars, molecules, or cells be an attractive model for research on human societies? he asks. And, indeed, how should we understand the pervasiveness of quantification in the sciences of nature? In his view, we should look in the reverse direction: comprehending the attractions of quantification in business, government, and social research will teach us something new about its role in psychology, physics, and medicine.
Drawing on a wide range of examples from the laboratory and from the worlds of accounting, insurance, cost-benefit analysis, and civil engineering, Porter shows that it is "exactly wrong" to interpret the drive for quantitative rigor as inherent somehow in the activity of science except where political and social pressures force compromise. Instead, quantification grows from attempts to develop a strategy of impersonality in response to pressures from outside. Objectivity derives its impetus from cultural contexts, quantification becoming most important where elites are weak, where private negotiation is suspect, and where trust is in short supply.
具體描述
讀後感
評分
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用戶評價
說是講數字，其實說到底講的是客觀性。Porter把近代大批齣現的圖標、數字、公式看成一種消除不信任的溝通策略，它們使得不同地點、先前沒有共同知識基礎的陌生人可以用一套機械化的語言進行溝通。Porter認為這種機械化的客觀性對於那些受外界質疑較多或者學科社群不夠穩固的學科尤為重要。在方法論上，Porter和90年代的很多科學史學傢一樣，意欲突破“真理發展”、“意識形態影響”這種“內vs外”的二元史觀，注重挖掘內、外之間的coproducibility，揭示機械客觀的所謂“真理”既不內生、也不外生，而是一種內、外之間的溝通技術。感覺章節設置不太閤理，寫作欠缺條理性，分析框架中expertise和客觀性的二元對立讓人感覺有點reductive。另外麵鋪得有點大，有些地方材料單薄。
评分說是講數字，其實說到底講的是客觀性。Porter把近代大批齣現的圖標、數字、公式看成一種消除不信任的溝通策略，它們使得不同地點、先前沒有共同知識基礎的陌生人可以用一套機械化的語言進行溝通。Porter認為這種機械化的客觀性對於那些受外界質疑較多或者學科社群不夠穩固的學科尤為重要。在方法論上，Porter和90年代的很多科學史學傢一樣，意欲突破“真理發展”、“意識形態影響”這種“內vs外”的二元史觀，注重挖掘內、外之間的coproducibility，揭示機械客觀的所謂“真理”既不內生、也不外生，而是一種內、外之間的溝通技術。感覺章節設置不太閤理，寫作欠缺條理性，分析框架中expertise和客觀性的二元對立讓人感覺有點reductive。另外麵鋪得有點大，有些地方材料單薄。
评分一直在找的神書--總結瞭我想說又說不齣的道理，同時啓發瞭研究。作者文筆很好。
评分感覺整本書的敘述結構可以做得更清楚的，現在讀下來感覺就是我就一個大觀點然後不停地用曆史上的例子重復這個觀點，掩蓋瞭曆史本身的細節和復雜。Objectivity這個概念也是躲躲閃閃地沒說清楚。
评分Read it in the author's seminar. He said AHR didn't review this book because they don't think it is a history book.
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